BC2 Viet Nam gameplay

PBBans drops Medal of Honor support

PBBans provides a streaming service to its Master Ban Index (MBI) that allows PunkBuster's core anti-cheat software to function more effectively.  When a server isn't streaming to the MBI, PB simply issues a temporary ban - typically for two minutes - that allows the cheater to reconnect to the server once the ban has expired.  Server admins have to edit their ban lists manually, but doing things that way is obviously inefficient for a number of reasons, particularly as every PB-enabled server has its own ban list that isn't shared between servers.

On November 30, PBBans announced that they will no longer support MoH, as the retail server providers (EA's "trusted GSP's") have declined to provide any meaningful assistance in solving the persistent streaming problems that have cropped-up in the last three or four months.  As EA/DICE have kept a tight lid on their dedicated server files, PBBans cannot debug the streaming process and resolve the issue.  (Note that this issue does not affect Bad Company 2.) 

Mikael Kalms at DICE has posted on the relevant thread on the PBBans forums, saying that "DICE is committed to getting PB to function properly in MOH. You will see at least one server update specifically to address the current issues with servers that randomly stop streaming."  That would be nice, but the fact that they allowed the problem to fester - to the point that an essential partner in ensuring the integrity of their multiplayer component just gave up on them - is the larger problem.  

When your game's server browser results look like this, you can't afford to give hackers all but free reign over what's left of your player population.

On a side note, PunkBuster integration seems to get worse with every generation of games.  Although detection has improved, the admin tools haven't advanced sufficiently, and developers just aren't putting the necessary effort into supporting it.  PB is an all-volunteer effort, and for that reason it's hard to criticize it for not being cutting-edge.  But with so many games moving to Steamworks/VAC, it's only a matter of time before PB loses its account with EA and folds altogether.

That will be a sad day for all of us who've relied on them to hold the line for so long.

Somebody's Been BAD RARGHHH!!!!!

Thanks go to Stinky for the find.

Red Orchestra 2 mod tech demo

Tripwire's Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad won't be released until Q2 2011 at the earliest, but they've already released mod tools to a select few.  The  video below is from Pop Smoke's "In-Country: Viet Nam" mod, showing off their dynamic foliage and some weapon models.  It's pretty impressive stuff, particularly since (almost) nobody knew that the Unreal 3 Engine was capable of this sort of thing.

I'll have much more to say about HOS at a later date, but for now, you really have to watch this:

CoD: BO ... patch-in-progress

From Treyarch's Black Ops forums:

Hey PC gamers:

We are listening to you and we’ve been busy working on updates based on feedback from the community. We have already deployed a number of updates, and there will be many more to come. Stay tuned right here for all the latest info.

IN PROGRESS

• Added an option to create shaders during load time. This fixes hitching when viewing a new area of the map for the first time on some video cards.

• Incomplete server browser results.

• Improvements to Quickmatch results (with better ping and reduced lag).

• /connect

• /reconnect

• Improved threading performance on computers with only 2 cores.

• Fixed random freezes in certain computer configurations.

• Increased reserved slots to 9.

• Improvements to the spawn system to resolve an issue where negative spawn influencers from specific game events were not always being deleted after the danger had cleared – in some matches, this was causing good spawns to be erroneously flagged by the game as bad spawns, which in turn forced actual bad spawns to get selected later in the match

• Weekly and Monthly leaderboards will now track all kills, deaths and assists properly (All Time leaderboards were not affected by this)

• Prevention of killstreak selection getting disabled in Combat Training under rare conditions

• Array: Added collision to prevent players from partially clipping into a tree

• Launch: Added collision to prevent players from strafe jumping onto an invisible ledge at the base of the rocket near B3

• Summit: Added collision to prevent players from jumping to a location outside of the map boundary when in Custom Games where player speed is maxed out

• Havana: Added collision to prevent players from jumping onto an invisible ledge above a doorway at C2

• Nuketown: Adjusted a spawn point that would spawn players on top of a mannequin’s head when that mannequin was randomly spawned in that location

• Launch: User could access a small platform outside of the intended play space below the rocket gantry by jumping to a very specific location; now blocked from access

• Launch: User could access a small area inside geometry at vents near Dom flag A by going prone and moving around in a very specific location; now blocked from access

• Some users reported that weapon attachment challenges were not resetting after prestige; now all are guaranteed to clear as soon as selecting the prestige option

• Radar sweep when there are only 2 players left in One in the Chamber will stop functioning if the 2 players have multiple lives when the sweep starts

• Villa: User can clip into rock at west edge of grid zone B2 and see through to the other side

• Crisis: User can clip into LVT between grid zone A3 and B3 and see through to the other side

• User can get an infinite number of 'Sam Turret', 'Care Package' and 'Sentry Gun' killstreaks (commonly referred to as the “care package glitch”)

(Emphasis supplied.)  With all the changes to the maps, expect this to be a huge download.

CoD: BO - single player easter egg

Super-weapons are just super:

Not exactly game related

But since I haven't had a chance to say hey to everyone in a while I thought I'd post a status and a "hey look at me" note.

My surgery seems to have gone well. I'm in a little less pain now, but it's a different pain, so that's good because it means it should fade. I spend 23 hours a day in bed and walk the other hour. I did get out yesterday and ride in our local parade, but instead of driving myself I had one of my employees drive my truck and I rode in the passenger seat and tossed candy - The whole driving experience is still not fun.

So, while lying in bed bored, between rounds of Minecraft (the only game I have on my work laptop, which runs Linux by the way,) and connecting to the work VPN to keep up with projects, I taught myself Java and learned to develop Android applications. I now have two in the Android Marketplace; a free mileage log and a low cost utility to download ebooks from a Calibre server.

I'm now working on a combination bedside clock and all-day ring controller that will stop your phone from ringing under certain conditions (like blocked caller-id) or override a silent SMS ringer if the sender puts in an exclamation mark or is on a specific list or something. Still in the early stages. Any Android users in IT()E who know how to use ADB and might want to beta test? I've still got another couple week of bed rest, so no doubt I'll have a test version by the end of the week.